Ama Kit Xmas Gift - 12_2020

could escape it, and it would only grow. The ship did not last long.
The people on the ship, however, did not know this. They couldn’t see the massive warping of
space ahead of and around them, nor could they see when they disappeared beneath the “surface”
of the normal continuum. All the passengers knew was that their captain had locked them in their
cabins and the surrounding hallways (for reasons still unknown) and that one moment, there
were stars, and the next, blackness. Few noticed the change, however, panicked as they were. All
the captain and his crew knew was that they were drawn in, a fish on a line, and not even the
strongest ramscoop or solar sail could have saved them (and that the passengers joining them
would only distract the pilots - possibly fatally if they weren’t dead yet). ​They​ noticed the
winking out of the stars.
Defeated, Calaway hung his head, grateful only that his dear Janine was safely tucked and
ignorant in their suite, unable to see him in such despair. Maybe he could keep his dignity at least
with his wife.
Deep in his own dejection, Calaway missed the marching sound of footsteps towards his seat,
noticing the pilot-aid before him only when the sound of a clearing throat rang loud, louder than
it should have had to. Fatigued, he looked up at his man without the usual brightness. This scared
the aid more than the disappearance of the stars.
“Sir,” the pilot-aid said, nodding nervously.
“What is it?”
The man hesitated. “We-we lost all senses, Sir. All our cameras, microphones, sensors,
measurement devices, everything. They’re gone.”
“Gone?” Calaway despaired, standing up, and looking around wildly. “How could such things
be gone? It’s like a man losing his eyes and ears!”
The man nodded again, taking a step back. “We know sir. It’s, it’s the pressure.”
“Pressure? On you or on the machinery?”
The man gulped. “The machinery. What we went into, it, well, it’s causing immense pressure.
Compression of, of the vacuum, if that’s possible. There’s no light, the temperature is dropping,
we can barely control the ship.”
“And you got all this ​before​ the machinery collapsed?”
“Yes, sir.”
Calaway furrowed his brow. If what the man said was true, then the ship would soon follow its
outside extremities. They would be crushed to death.​ That’s no way for a man such as me to die!
He thought. Still frowning, he tossed a glance towards the navs and pilots, saw only a display of
confused faces and stilled hands. Sighing, he walked over to a shelf of books he’d had installed
by the stage staircase (obviously for appearances and the limited navigation of the bridge
on-planet). It was small, not going too far above his head, but there was enough space for much
more than a trip’s worth of reading. He’d had it built for long voyages, of the kind he’d hoped
for Cruise Flight 1 to one day make. Correction: the kind of voyages he ​still​ hoped Cruise Flight
1 would make. Plus, having a lot of books makes people think you read much and are therefore
more intelligent. He was always trimming his appearance to suit what he wanted to be seen as.